The present disclosure relates to the field of flexible materials, platforms and substrates and to the use of flexible materials including in various circuitry.
In recent years there has been significant research directed toward reducing both the dimensions and power consumption of circuits, while providing an increase in the functionality and operating speeds of the circuits. In addition to these opposing tensions, these research efforts have been further burdened with recognition of application-specific advantages resulting from optimizing integration densities and adapting the circuits to fit irregularly-sized shapes and geometries required for targeted end uses.
In efforts to address at least some of these issues, such research has attempted to implement flexible electronics through the use of plastic substrate materials which can facilitate configuring aspects of the circuits into desirable shapes. In these regards, limited success has been realized in connection with various goals spurring some of this research. These goals have included one or more of the following examples: process compatibility with conventional circuit manufacturing techniques used in semiconductor-fabrication efforts such as layering, etching and alignment techniques; process compatibility between melting points of plastic substrates and heating processes used for manufacturing conventional circuit parts; combination of plastic with conventional circuitry materials having limits in deformability; and plastic substrates not having the typical electronic properties expected for many electronic applications. In light of these and other issues, such research efforts have yielded limited success such as in applications that do not carry some of the other above-mentioned requirements including, for example, reduced dimensions and optimized integration densities.
Curved focal plane arrays (FPA) can be used to substantially improve the optical performance of camera systems, including those used in applications such as consumer and professional digital cameras, astronomical cameras, microscopy applications and x-ray imagers. Curving the imaging plane provides a way to simplify the optical system, thereby allowing for a decrease in cost and camera size without adversely affecting performance. Several groups have demonstrated curved FPAs. However, the achieved curvatures are typically too small to lead to substantial improvements in performance or the fabrication processes are incompatible with mass-produced materials such as monolithic silicon.